Low-fare Frontier Airlines coming to Syracuse

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Frontier Airlines is bringing its low fares to Syracuse with flights to four cities.

The airline will offer the only nonstop service from Syracuse Hancock International Airport to Denver and Raleigh/Durham, N.C., with flights on Mondays and Fridays starting July 2.

Beginning Aug. 12, it will add nonstop flights to Chicago's O'Hare airport on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays and to Orlando, Fla., on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

"With our new flights to Chicago O'Hare, Denver, Orlando and Raleigh, we are making air travel more accessible and affordable for travelers to and from Central New York and surrounding areas," Rick Zeni, chief information officer for Frontier, said in a statement Wednesday.

Denver-based Frontier is known as an ultra-low-cost carrier. It charges base fares that are often significantly lower than those charged by major airlines and adds fees for "optional" services such as carry-on and checked bags and advance seat assignments.

Its entrance to a market often brings down the fares charged by other carriers because of the increased competition.

The airline said it will offer special introductory one-way fares as low as $29 to Raleigh, $39 to Orlando, $49 to Chicago and $79 to Denver, with the same fares for flights from those cities. (Tickets, which will be available on FlyFrontier.com, must be purchased by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, April 6. Travel is restricted to certain days, depending on the destination.)

Frontier flies to more than 80 destinations in the United States, Canada, Dominican Republic and Mexico on nearly 300 daily flights. The airline says it flies one of the youngest fleets in the industry, with nearly 80 planes in the Airbus A320 family and almost 200 new planes on order.

Syracuse airport officials have been trying for years to persuade discount carriers to serve the airport.

Allegiant Air, which has a similar ultra-low-cost model as Frontier, began serving the airport in 2015 and now offers nonstop flights to three Florida cities and summer service to Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Nashville, Tenn.

Years-long efforts to bring the world's largest low-cost carrier, Southwest Airlines, to Syracuse have been unsuccessful. But Callahan called Frontier's announcement a "watershed moment" for the Syracuse Regional Airport Authority's push to increase competition and bring lower fares to Syracuse air travelers.

The authority had been hinting of a major announcement for several days, posting a message on the airport's Facebook page saying, "Something big is coming."